Have you ever stopped to wonder how many times you check your phone or even thought about the number of hours you spend looking down at the tiny little screen? Chances are, if we are being honest with ourselves, the number is probably extremely close to the number of hours we are awake in the day. It’s like another attachment to our bodies; we feel weird and naked without having it on our person. For the majority of us, we have to have it in our hands or where we can see it in order to feel like we are complete. It’s a little strange, right? That you have to have this little piece of technology with you at all times, but we’ve grown up in a world that emphasizes instant connection between people. The generations before us, the Millennials, don’t really understand why we’re so attached to our technology because they didn’t grow up with a billion channels on the TV or portable computers. It might be weird to them, but you have to admit, having access to the world at our fingertips is pretty cool.

The advancement we have made in cell phone technology alone in the past few years is astonishing. Remember when a Razor cell phone was the coolest thing since sliced bread? Now, it’s the iPhone 6s that everyone has to have this season. Until, of course, Apple comes out with the next version and everyone becomes obsessed with that one. We are basically carrying around tiny, hand-held computers in our pockets. That’s absolutely insane. We are able to instantly watch or the news, keep up with our friends on social media, catch up on the latest TV show, and much more on the go. When someone asks a question that we don’t have the answer to, we can pull out our phones look it up in a matter of seconds. And we don’t even have to type out the question anymore. We can just press a button, speak into the phone, and get links to a website with the answer. And this is just cell phone technology. Think about the entire medical, intellectual, engineering and every other subject in between technology that has advanced over the years. No longer are we limited to just texts and images on a piece of paper; we can print 3D objects on a special 3D printer. We are living in the digital age and are continuing to advance our society by delving further into these new ways to make life more efficient, and that to me is quite amazing.

However, there are some downsides to constant communication and rapid technological advancement. Nowadays, having a conversation in person has become out of the norm. We would rather use machines to communicate than actually speaking to other people. If given the choice, we would much rather order our pizza online. Why call and have to speak to someone when I can avoid all conversation by using a website, right? These tendencies encourage us to avoid personal conversation and ultimately hinder our social skills. Making our lives easier by letting technology do the work has taken jobs away from actual people. We are even making talking robots that can deny commands if they do not think it is safe for them to do the said command. That is a little frightening.

Although there is negativity surrounding the way our society is evolving in this digital age, there are those great aspects that new technology that have saved lives and for some, GPAs. Technological advancement is a double-edged sword. There are pros and cons to each side of the argument, but in an ever-changing global society, it is best that we continue to find better ways to keep our society functioning. Moderation and emphasis on human interaction will help with people’s tendency to avoid actually talking to people. And ethical laws on technology help keep those working on finding new technology to better our lives. Ultimately, there is not really a way to get around the way our society is moving, except to try to make the changes in our personal lives to fit what we believe on this piece of our society.